A place in this world is a photography project by the Spanish photographer Néstor Rives undertaken in 2018 that captures the remains of the old German Nazi camps of Auschwitz and Terezin. The close-ups of these testaments of the Holocaust aim to transport viewers to the place where the events took place to awaken a consciousness of what went on.
The precision of his photography allows the artist to represent each detail in a significant way. These direct images and closed compositions show a place that saw the mass extermination of over one million people in a new light.
Portrait of a Jewish woman, Auschwitz
Cracks of façade, Auschwitz
Cracks of façade, Terezin
Entrance stairs from Block 11, Auschwitz
Door handle from Block 10, Auschwitz
Desktop in the Kleine Festung ( Small Fortress), Terezin
Looking at the doors evokes the looks of the inmates of the barracks and the stones and cracks of the walls still produce tangible feelings when we contemplate them. Suddenly, based on these small details, we can imagine the empty gazes, the cold, the hunger and the harsh living conditions endured by the prisoners at these camps.
Néstor Rives’ photography seeks to make his viewers react and reflect, returning home with the feeling of having been in that place for an instant, a feeling etched in their consciousness and heart.
In the photographer’s own words: “only through knowledge will we be able to honour those who suffered and leave, upon the others, our own stone of memory.”
Prague’s Jewish cemetery
Zyklon B can, Auschwitz
A window inside a cell, Terezin
Interior of female’s barracks, Auschwitz-Birkenau
Outer façade, Auschwitz
Pike to bathe, Terezin
Interior façade, Auschwitz
Portrait of a Jewish man, Auschwitz
Jewish star inside Magdeburg barracks, Terezin
Photographer
Néstor Rives (Sant Just Desvern, Barcelona 1988).
After studying graphic design and photography, Rives decided to focus on documentary art photography. His hard, dark look deals with every day matters we do not always pay attention to but, whether we like it or not, constitute us, as individuals and as a society.
Selected for Descubrimientos PhotoEspaña 2016, Scan PhotoBook Tarragona 2016 and 2018, Biennal Art Contemporain JCE 2017, PhotoAlicante 2018, PA-TA-TA Festival 2017 and 2018, among others.
Photographer’s website: www.nestorrives.es